


How to Destroy Your Gods

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: tumblr fics & ficlets. [91]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February Trope Bingo, Past Bedelia Du Maurier/OFC, Past Character Death, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vampire Bedelia, Vampire Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9696905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: If you live long enough, you begin to see the same eyes appear in different people.Bedelia has become accustomed to it.But that doesn't meant she expects to open her door on a brisk spring morning and find herself staring into piercing blue eyes that she has been running away from for five hundred years.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 'reincarnation' square on my Femtrope Bingo Card, and for Femslash February! Hannibal is more mentioned than anything in this. 
> 
> inspired by the quote "If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people," from Star Wars: The Force Awakens (a line that I also borrowed for the story itself, so credit where credit is due).
> 
> ~~(also, this was supposed to be 700 words. I suck.)~~

Bedelia has heard countless patients say, in so many words, that they believe in reincarnation. They believe that, when they die, they'll come back as a different person, in a wholly different part of the world, and have wholly different experiences, before repeating the cycle for all eternity.

For most of them, the belief wasn’t real. It was no more than a coping mechanism, a way for them to sleep through the night, a way to know that no matter how close they came to scraping the bottom of the barrel, their next go-around would be better. The belief was a series of pretty words that they forgot once they were on their deathbeds, once they were scared and alone. 

It’s unfortunate that their beliefs are only skin-deep, because there is more than a grain of truth to them. When you've lived for so many years, when the passing of a decade feels like the blink of an eye, history begins to repeat itself. People from your past melt into your present. A long-deceased lover's silhouette brushes past on the street, a laugh from the seventeenth century echoes through a crowd, a hint of perfume that has no place in a modern-day supermarket floats by for only a moment before wafting away once more. 

If you live long enough, you begin to see the same eyes appear in different people. 

Bedelia has become accustomed to it. 

But that doesn't meant she expects to open her door on a brisk spring morning and find herself staring into piercing blue eyes that she has been running away from for five hundred years. 

The last time she saw them, they belonged to a woman with a corona of black hair and a round face tanned from years of soaking up the sun as she walked along the docks and through the snarled crowds of the markets. They'd always been inquisitive, probing, mischievous, depending upon the situation, and when they caught the candlelight, it'd been like staring into a bottomless pool so beautiful it could only belong in Heaven. 

The face that those eyes are presently set in is wholly unfamiliar to Bedelia. It's infinitely paler, almost as white as the snow that has just barely melted from the ground. Thick clumps of deep red ringlets spiral away from sharp cheekbones and a square chin, and a pair of glossed lips are quirked up into a faint semblance of a smile. None of the features bear even a passing resemblance to Caterina's; had it not been for making eye contact, Bedelia could have passed the woman in a crowd without a second glance. 

But the _eyes._

"May I help you?" she asks coolly, keeping one hand wrapped around the doorknob. It's thankfully an overcast day; although her skin is accustomed to spending short bursts of time in the sun, her eyes still ache if not shielded by dark sunglasses. 

"Ms. du Maurier," the woman says, and the voice that emanates from her lips is just as unfamiliar as the rest of her. "I'm Freddie Lounds. I’m a reporter for Tattle Crime." She pauses for a moment, lets the words linger in the air, as if they're supposed to spark some sense of recognition. 

They don't.

"May I ask what you're doing at my home, Ms. Lounds?" Bedelia replies once the pause has stretched past the point of comfort. The fake smile slips into something sharper, something that shows slivers of square teeth. 

"Have you ever heard of a man named Bernard Fawcett?" she asks, reaching down to undo the clasp on the leather bag hanging at her side. "Baltimore resident, 42 years old." 

"Should I have?" Bedelia asks with a raised eyebrow. 

The smile grows razor-sharp. 

"Well, maybe it's not surprising that you don’t know his name," Freddie says with a quiet laugh as she pulls a manila envelope from her bag. She flicks it open with one movement and, from within, pulls out a single photograph, which she passes to Bedelia face down. Bedelia flicks it over and is met with a photograph of a man from the shoulders up, facing the camera, neutral expression, from a passport or driver's license. 

It takes mere seconds for Bedelia’s mind to make the connection.. 

She's aware that Freddie is speaking to her, but the words are no more than background noise to the recollection playing in her head. It’s a collection of sensations more than a coherent narrative; the thick taste of warm blood draining from a pierced artery, the sound of desperate gasps underneath her palm, the crack of a tendon as it stretches beyond its limits. 

She knows the man’s face. She knows nothing else about him, not his name, not his occupation or his family history. Unlike Hannibal, who has always preyed exclusively on those who have committed a personal affront against him, Bedelia has only ever been comfortable feeding from complete strangers, ones she has no feelings towards, one way or the other. 

(Sometimes, her comfort has to take a backstage to the corrosive _need_ to feed. But she has not experienced such displeasure for five centuries.)

“I’m afraid that I don’t recognize him,” Bedelia says, cutting Freddie off mid-sentence. “You must be mistaken.” She hands the photograph back, and a small part of her, the part that Hannibal has never quite managed to kill off, hopes that that will be the end of it, that this stranger with the eyes of her past lover will simply vanish back into the world with an apology. 

Freddie takes the photo and returns it to the envelope. But rather than leaving or apologizing, she pulls out another photo and passes it to Bedelia, face-up this time. 

Much of the photo is just blur and shadows, and perhaps that is all a casual observer would be able to make of it. But Bedelia’s eyes can make out the subject of the photo, can see that the hunch of darkness in the center is her own curved back, can see that one line of shadow is a gout of blood dripping down the brick wall of the alleyway she had taken her kill in. 

“I know, it isn’t some of my best work,” Freddie says, sliding the envelope back into her bag and firmly securing the clasp. “But it’s far from the only one, and let me assure you, the others are far better. I think I could publish them with minimal editing.” She tilts her head slightly to the right, and for a moment, time blurs together, and Bedelia sees Caterina staring at her across a broad table dotted with dozens of candles, saying volumes with only a small movement and a smile. 

“So, Ms. du Maurier,” Freddie continues, snapping Bedelia back to the stoop of her home, “perhaps you should invite me inside.” 

Bedelia could destroy her. It would take two simple steps and the flick of a wrist to snap Freddie’s pale neck in two. She could drag her body inside, drain her dry, and make her disappear. It would be almost laughably easy. 

But she does not know if Freddie has put some kind of failsafe in place, if she has arranged a way to release the other photos she has. There is no doubt that she has them; her heart rate has barely fluctuated since Bedelia opened the door, and she’s not perspiring. There is no lie lying beneath her words, and if she knows what Bedelia truly is, then not having failsafes would be the most positively moronic decision she could make. 

And then, there’s the matter of her eyes. 

“Yes,” she says belatedly, dropping her grip on the doorknob and stepping aside, “I suppose I should.” 

She doesn’t wait for Freddie to enter. She turns on her heel and heads deeper into her home, to the living room with its wall of glass covered by thick velvet drapes. Freddie follows close behind, mouth silent but heartbeat pulsing steadily. She remains silent as Bedelia settles herself in the chair she’d only recently vacated and picks up the glass of wine resting on the arm. It’s one of Hannibal’s concoctions, mixed with just enough blood so that she can consume it without her stomach turning. Freddie settles herself in the chair opposite, pulls the envelope from her purse again, and sets in on her lap as she leans back in the chair like it’s one of her own. 

“So,” Bedelia begins, taking a sip of the warm wine, “may I ask what you hope to gain by blackmailing me?” 

“Blackmail is such an ugly word,” Freddie replies. In the dim room, lit only by a standing lamp in the corner, the sight of Caterina’s eyes in her face is slightly less jarring. “I’ve always preferred extortion.” She pauses again, but Bedelia does not respond; she doesn’t wish to debate semantics. “The point is, I want you to help me stop Hannibal Lecter.” 

Bedelia pauses with her glass halfway to her lips. She knows that her ears are not mistaken; even if it weren’t for her attuned hearing, the words are still ringing across the room, filling the space between them, taking up every inch of air. Freddie’s facial expression has not changed. Her eyes are locked on Bedelia, and she looks _determined_ , as if she truly believes she could be the one to bring Hannibal Lecter to his knees after nearly one thousand years of rule.

It’s hopelessly, pathetically naive, to the point of almost being endearing. 

“Ms. Lounds,” she begins, only to be interrupted.

“Please. Call me Freddie.” 

“I don’t think you realize what you are asking,” Bedelia continues without acknowledging the interruption. “Do you truly know who Hannibal Lecter is?” 

“He’s the Chesapeake Ripper,” Freddie answers. “He’s murdered at least fifty people in the last five years. He’s turning Will Graham into a murderer in his own image, and the FBI is too blind to see any of it. They took out a restraining order against me, rather than consider the possibility that their prized consultant might be a murderer.”

“To say nothing of a vampire,” Bedelia adds. The word is foreign on her tongue; it’s not a descriptor she ever uses for herself or for others of her kind. Primarily, she says it to gauge Freddie’s reaction, to see if she’ll instinctively roll her eyes at the word, even while she carries proof of its existence. Instead, Freddie simply nods. 

“To say nothing of that. I’m not foolish enough to believe the FBI would entertain that notion. But, if you help me, we can catch him in the act. We can convince the FBI he’s a monster. A human monster, albeit, but a monster nonetheless.” 

“And what would you get out of such a deal?” Bedelia asks with genuine curiosity. She cannot think of a single motivation (aside from religion) that could make a flesh and bone human pursue a blood drinker so doggedly. Freddie tilts her head and leans forward, hands clasped on her knees.

“Money,” she says. “I’d have the inside track on the story. By the time Hannibal made it to his first bail hearing, I’d have a book on the shelves, with a second edition coming right after the trial finished. The exclusive Hannibal Lecter story would be mine, a monster would be behind bars, and I could rub the FBI’s nose in it, every single day. If you help me, I’m willing to share the profits. We can negotiate. ” 

Bedelia appreciates her honesty. It’s a remarkable breath of fresh air, not having to tease a true motives out into the open. 

But, boldness aside, it reeks of naivety. No matter how intelligent Freddie believes herself to be, she’s just barely scraped the surface of Hannibal’s identity. 

Bedelia has nothing to lose by giving her the full picture or, at least, something more approaching the full picture. 

(There are some secrets she’s sworn to never speak again.) 

“Tell me, Ms. Lounds,” she begins, swirling the crimson of her wine around the inside of the glass, “do you believe in reincarnation?” 

“I believe that it’s no stranger than the idea that there is an omnipotent being watching and judging us every day,” Freddie replies in the quick manner of someone who has thought about the subject before. “Why?” 

“Because when you have lived as long as I have, you realize that reincarnation is not just a concept. People from the past return to your life long after they passed from it, usually in the least expected of ways. Your eyes, for example.” 

Freddie raises one eyebrow. “My eyes?” 

“Yes. They are the only reason I let you in this house. They are the only reason you still have blood running through your veins.” 

For the first time since Bedelia opened the door, Freddie’s heartbeat speeds up, albeit by a fraction of the speed that such a threat usually elicits. 

“Whose eyes do I have?” she asks. Bedelia expects to hear derision in her voice, maybe even a note of amusement, some kind of hint that she’s simply playing along. However, she sounds _interested_ , as if she’s actually considering the possibility, and Bedelia forges onward. 

“Her name was Caterina,” she says softly. She can count on one hand the number of times she’s spoken the name since 1520. A lump slides into her throat, and she drowns it in wine before she continues. “She was a sex worker. She walked the docks and the markets during the day, worked private parties during the night. I met her at Hannibal’s villa one evening, while she was taking a moment in the garden between clients. She was more beautiful than you could possibly imagine. The greatest artists couldn’t do her justice, no matter how they tried.” 

“What happened to her?” Freddie asks, in the soft tones of one invested totally in a story. 

Before she starts once more, Bedelia can’t help but wonder just how many people have heard Freddie speak in such a way.

“We had two years together. Two years that felt like a mere drop in the ocean. She knew what I was, and she didn’t run. We were very nearly happy. But the knowledge of what I was slipped to the wrong person, and while we were in bed one evening, we were attacked and overwhelmed. We were imprisoned.”

Time skips once more. The pungent dampness of their imprisonment floods her nose. They’d been held near the Arno, and the stink of the river had permeated every single inch of the cold, stone walled prison. The constant _plink_ of dripping water had been impossible to block out, and even though there’d been no windows to let in the sun, Bedelia hadn’t been able to sleep. Not for one day. 

“They kept us in enjoining cells,” she says. When she unclenches her fingers, the stem of her wine glass shatters and falls to the floor in a stream of sharp pieces. The cup itself, however, stays intact, and she simply adjusts her grip. “There was a row of bars between us. The gap between them was wide enough for me to be able to hold her hand, but I couldn’t wrench the bars apart. Sometimes, very rarely, humans do manage to get the best of us.”

“How long were you imprisoned for?” Freddie asks, and Bedelia can almost hear the dozens of other questions that she’s biting back. 

“Months. I’m not sure of the exact number,” Bedelia answers. “They fed Caterina three times a day, just enough to keep her alive. They fed me nothing. I had to satisfy myself with the rats that came through the bars, but eventually, even they learned better. I began to starve. I felt as if I was going mad. The only thing that mattered was feeding. While I withered, Caterina continued to receive food. She would have stopped eating it, if I had asked it of her. We could have wasted away together.”

“What did you do to her?”

“I asked her to stay out of my reach, against the opposite wall, away from the bars. And she did, for a very long time. She talked to me, told me stories, sang. For some time, it was enough to keep me sane. But around the third month, it stopped working. I barely heard her voice. All I knew was the smell of her blood in my nose and the roar of her heartbeat, louder than the ocean.” She waits for another question, but it doesn’t come. The manila envelope slips from Freddie’s lap to the floor, and she reaches down to retrieve it without looking away from Bedelia. 

“One day, when the men came to feed Caterina, they left the door of her cell unlocked. As they left, they unlocked mine as well. That was all it took. In the time it took her to raise a spoon to her mouth, I was through the doors and on her.” 

“You killed her,” Freddie says quietly. Bedelia shakes her head. 

“Killed is not the word I would use.That would imply that the purpose of the act was to simply end her life. _Ate_ is more accurate.” She doesn’t mean to get to her feet, but in the blink of an eye, in the time it takes the remnants of her wine glass to fall to the polished floor and shatter, she’s up and halfway across the room, looming over Freddie. “She was the love of my life. The only person in eight hundred years that I considered turning, so that we could spend eternity together. And I quenched my throat with her blood and sucked the marrow from her bones when my hunger refused to abate. I tore her to shreds. By the time I finished, the only recognizable part of her was her eyes, staring at me from her colorless face. I was still licking her blood from my fingers when Hannibal entered the room.” 

“He was your imprisoner?” Freddie asks. The tightening of her fingers around the envelope is minute, but Bedelia sees them flex and release clear as day. 

“Our creators so very often are our jailers,” Bedelia replies. “He was curious to see the extent of my love for her. He wanted to see what would happen, how long it would take me to break. _If_ I would break. I believe that he was pleased with the results.” 

“So why didn’t you kill him?” Freddie pushes. 

Bedelia shakes her head. For someone so sure of herself, so sure that her knowledge will protect her, Freddie is hopelessly misinformed. 

“Humans are lucky. All it takes for you to kill your gods, your creators, is to cut them out of your life. If you sever your belief in them, they lose their power over you. My kind is not gifted with such a privilege. We cannot kill our creators. But, like gods, our creators can murder and torture us with impunity.” She takes two more steps forward and seizes the envelope, yanks it away quickly away for Freddie to draw her hand back and hiss, likely from a papercut forming across the length of her palm. 

“So,” she continues as she tears the envelope in half, then in quarters, “believe me when I say that I am infinitely more terrified of Hannibal Lecter than I am of you revealing my existence to the world. If you release those pictures, I will simply vanish. You would never find me. But even if Hannibal was captured, he would escape, and he would find me. He always has.” She opens her hands, and the shredded pieces of the envelope fall to the floor like snow.

“It sounds to me like you’re still a prisoner,” Freddie says, brushing a stray piece of torn paper away from her knee. “Your bars are just harder to see.” 

“It is a prison that I’ve accepted,” Bedelia responds, nostrils twitching minutely as the smell of spilled blood from Freddie’s papercut reaches her nose. 

Her blood smells like Caterina’s. 

“You should also accept it,” she continues. “Find another story to write about. Let Hannibal do what he does best.” 

“And what’s that?” 

“Destroy.” For one moment, Freddie’s resolve seems to waver. Her face grows cloudy, and her gaze drops away, across the room to where Bedelia’s shattered wine glass is covering the floor. 

“Vampires aren’t the only creatures capable of destruction,” she finally says, and her face hardens into marble once more. “Humanity has been doing it since the dawn of time. That destruction has to have extended to a vampire, at least once. Am I right?” Bedelia nods, albeit reluctantly. 

“Many of our kind have been felled by humans. But you are far from the first to try and kill Hannibal, and I assure you, your fate will be the same as all the others.” 

“Not if you help me.” Freddie jumps to her feet, and thanks to their heeled footwear, they’re the same height. “If you help me, the past doesn’t have to repeat itself. If you help me, you can be _free_ , Bedelia.” There’s nowhere Bedelia can look where Freddie’s eyes aren’t staring at her, nowhere that they aren’t a presence in her peripheral vision. 

“I presume that you’ll still be writing a book, if I do agree to assist you,” she muses, dropping her eyes to the cupid’s bow of Freddie’s lips.

“Of course.”

“And if I refuse, you’ll release the photos.” Freddie shrugs, and a broad smile spreads across her face. 

“I’m reconsidering,” she says. It’s far from being a definite agreement that she _won’t_ release them, and taking it as anything other than a maybe is possibly the worst decision Bedelia has ever made. 

But those _eyes_. Those damn blue eyes, glimmering like the sun striking the ocean on a brutally hot day. Regardless of the face they are set into, they are Caterina’s eyes. 

“Fine,” she says, and those eyes grow damnably brighter. “I will help you.” In the back of her mind, the ominous boom of a church bell sounding out over a funeral begins to tone.

“Excellent,” Freddie replies. She extends her hand into Bedelia’s space, the hand smeared with droplets of blood from her papercut, and when Bedelia takes it, she feels the blood transfer to her own skin. Once Freddie drops back into her seat, Bedelia turns to return to her own and, instinctively, raises her palm to her mouth and drags her tongue along the blood tracing over the heart-line of her hand.

Being aware of reincarnation, of the fact that Freddie Lounds is Caterina returned to her, still doesn’t prepare her for the taste.

Not only does it smell like Caterina’s blood, it _is_ Caterina’s blood. Every single note, each aspect of the taste, is identical, and memories flood Bedelia’s senses. The line between past and present doesn’t just blur; it vanishes entirely. Bedelia gasps and stumbles slightly as her living room blends into the bedrooms of half a dozen villas and back again. It takes a hard shake of her head for the room to completely resolve itself in the present, and she completes the journey to her chair, settling into it more heavily than she intends.

When she glances across the room, Freddie has produced a notebook from her bag and is flipping the front cover open. When she looks up, she tilts her head once more and presses the thumb of her right hand into the palm of her left. 

Bedelia can’t see the fresh blood spring up, but she can certainly smell it. 

“Well then,” she says, settling back into the chair with a slight smirk. “Where should we begin?” She readies her pen on the page and glances up at Bedelia through her long eyelashes, cerulean eyes glinting. 

Bedelia barely manages to keep herself from crossing the room and dragging Freddie’s mouth up to meet her own. 

Those eyes are going to be the death of her.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
